Thursday, March 13, 2008

Livni Learns Bushspeak

After meeting with Secretary of State Condi Rice, Israeli Foreign Minister pulled a classic Bush move, say you're not doing something when the evidence proves you clearly are. In Ms. Livni's case the topic was West Bank settlement expansion. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved a 750 housing unit expansion on Sunday, only to be followed by a 32 unit expansion on Tuesday. Here's Tzipi Livni's version of Bushspeak (from the Jerusalem Post):

On the eve of a US report which is expected to be particularly critical of Israeli implementation of its road map obligations, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni downplayed a recent decision by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to unfreeze a 750-unit housing project in Givat Ze'ev, saying that it was not government policy to expand settlements, Reuters reported. "It's not the Israeli government policy to expand settlements these days," Livni told students at Harvard University. "We decided to stop settlement activities." She went on to characterize the planned expansion of Givat Ze'ev as "not dramatic," but said that other expansion activities would be "unhelpful."

Let's see, Ms. Livni spent the earlier part of the week visiting with her American friends in the Bush administration. It appears she learned something. Condi frequently talks about policy while ignoring practice. It's not her policy to buy expensive shoes...